


There may be teardrops to shed

by marysutherland



Series: Let's Face the Music [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Episode: s02e03 The Reichenbach Fall, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-11
Updated: 2012-04-11
Packaged: 2017-11-03 11:50:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/381056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marysutherland/pseuds/marysutherland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock still isn't sure how he can fit his feelings for John into his other plans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by the amazing [Blooms84](http://blooms84.livejournal.com/).

_"I am pleased to think that I shall be able to free society from any further effects of his presence, though I fear it is at a cost which will give pain to my friends, and especially, my dear Watson, to you."_ – The Final Problem

  


There are more times than Sherlock would like to admit when he simply doesn't understand humanity. But far more alarming are the times when he doesn't understand _John_. Why is John worrying about what the papers say about them after the Ricoletti case, telling him to keep a low profile? He stares into the distance as he tries to puzzle it out. _As if it matters what some idiots believe about me or him...oh. Of course._

"Jason Donovan," he announces, and John looks up from the papers and says: "What's he done?"

"Sued for libel. No, not a recent case, years ago," Sherlock replies. "It's why they call you a confirmed bachelor. Because you can be sued if you claim someone is gay when they're not. Though you will obviously then appear to be homophobic, so it's hardly an advisable tactic."

"How do you know about Jason Donovan?" John enquires, which is a very John-like question. Sherlock momentarily contemplates claiming that Mycroft had a crush on him as a teenager, but resists the temptation. There's something more interesting to get at here.

"Why do you mind being thought of as gay?" he asks. "You didn't bother to correct them at the Cross Keys Inn."

John looks up at him in exasperation. "Because I would like at some point – in the next decade, say – to get laid," he says.  "As in have sex with an actual woman. And while it's hard enough dating someone with the world's most tactless flatmate around, it will be even harder if the entire newspaper readership of the UK believe that we are shagging." He pauses and adds. "It's not just that I'm worried about, honestly. The press like stories about you, so if they don't have any fresh ones to run, they're going to find old stuff about you."

"And?" Sherlock says dismissively.

"They're going to dig out someone who knew you when you were a junkie and run all the sordid details about that."

That's a surprisingly shrewd remark, Sherlock realises, because there are certainly people out there who could reveal rather a lot about his illegal consumption of stimulants.

"And you think that matters?" he asks.

"If it got in the papers, it would upset some of your friends, and probably put off the more strait-laced clients. Look, I'm not trying to get at you about the drugs, I'm glad you've cleaned up. But that's the sort of thing that will happen if you become a celebrity. People will want to hear awful things about you, because it brightens up their boring lives." John starts tidying away the papers into a pile, looking like he wished he could tear them into shreds.

Sherlock is about to point out that people are idiots, but John knows that already. Instead, on an impulse, he says: "The newspaper stories work because they seem plausible, of course.  Sometimes they even are partially right. For example, you may be straight, but I am, in fact, gay."

He's prepared for surprise or disbelief, given some of his previous comments on the topic; discomfort is unlikely, but a slightly tasteless joke is not beyond the bounds of possibility. 

"Right," John says, not looking up from his tidying. Sherlock waits, but John doesn't add anything.

"Are you listening to what I'm saying?" Sherlock demands.

John looks up. "You're not interested in sex," he says calmly. "If you _were_ interested in sex you'd be interested in blokes, not women, but you're not, so you're not."

_He's been doing some research, hasn't he_ , Sherlock thinks, _trying to work out what makes me tick_. _Read up on asexuality and noticed that some asexual people still identify as straight or gay_. He wonders if he should tell John he's wrong about him being asexual – _it's not that I can't experience desire, it's that I choose not to_ – but he's too late, because John has obviously decided that Sherlock needs reassuring.

"It really doesn't worry me," John says hastily. "I've read so many tabloid newspapers this morning, I'm not sure _I_ feel like sex ever again. Or any further contact with human beings. Well, at least not anyone who reads this trash. Do we _have_ to keep the hard copy of all of these? I'm getting worried that the pile will collapse on top of me, and I'll be literally suffocated by them."

Sherlock wonders if outing yourself ought to produce a more interested reaction, but on the other hand, the thought of how you could kill a person with a pile of newsprint is really more intriguing. Newspapers in bulk might indeed be deadly. As opposed to a single issue, with which you really can't do any serious harm to anybody.

Just over six weeks later, Kitty Riley shows him how wrong he is about that.

***

John's sometimes accused Sherlock of having a problem with women, but that's inaccurate. Sherlock has a problem with most of John's girlfriends, although he can hardly tell John that any boyfriends he turned up with would probably get an even worse reception. He also has a problem with the incompetent. The fact that counsel for the prosecution at Moriarty's trial is black and female is irrelevant; as the reaction of the old, white, male, upper class judge to him shows, Sherlock is an equal opportunity irritant.

The complication with many women – and some men – is that they are attracted to Sherlock, and hope for some kind of favourable response from him to this fact. He's aware that he's repeatedly upset Molly Hooper in that way. So it's a relief to realise that Kitty Riley isn't interested in his body, that the cleavage on display is just the weapon of an unscrupulous woman. An unscrupulous and not very bright woman: she thinks he's sleeping with John and yet he might be interested in _her_? That he would want anything to do with her, in bed or out of it? Sherlock dismisses Ms Riley as a minor problem, and he winces later to realise how he missed the set-up of the three card trick.

***

It seems straightforward, at first. Three problems: Moriarty and his code, Sally Donovan and the Bruhl kidnapping, Kitty Riley and her scoop. The latter two elements are clearly distractions, to prevent him focusing on Moriarty. It's only far too late that Sherlock realises they're key to Moriarty's plan. Jim knows Sherlock doesn't fear dying. But if he can no longer be a detective, what is there left in Sherlock's life?

What's impressive is how Moriarty uses Sherlock's own genius against him. Makes the Bruhl case just easy enough for him to solve that it looks like a trick. Well, at least to DS Donovan's sceptical eyes.

Sally Donovan isn't incompetent, or at least not by the dismally low standards of the Met. She's determined, tough, smart; she ought to have been promoted to Inspector ahead of Dimmock. But she's also prone to the occasional horrendous error of judgement. She makes mistakes and then she's too pigheaded to back down, admit she's wrong. Still hanging round with Anderson, who, from the state of his shoes, is clearly never going to leave his wife. And Sally misunderstands Claudette Bruhl's screams and can't work out the obvious conclusion: that Moriarty is using a double of Sherlock.

Anderson, on his own, would just bitch about Sherlock being a fraud; Sally takes action, won't let the matter go. Not even to protect Lestrade; not when there are children involved. Sherlock's been relying on Lestrade to keep Scotland Yard happy, but this time it doesn't work. And John's right: there are a lot of police officers Sherlock's pissed off over the years. It won't be easy getting things back to normal after this. Even Greg might not forgive him for stealing the gun and running off. It's a good job John still trusts him.

***

John trusts him in all sorts of ways. It doesn't worry him, for example, that he ends up handcuffed to a gay man, though that would surely panic many straight men. Or at least, what worries John isn't that Sherlock might try and get into his underwear, it's that Sherlock might manage to knock him unconscious on some railings by mistake.

Sherlock's never realised quite how _attached_ he is to John till now. He is acutely conscious of every move, every breath John takes, how John has to lengthen his stride uncomfortably to keep up with Sherlock, bobbing after him like a cork on a string. But also how John follows him, doesn't try to fight him or resist him, even when Sherlock pulls them in front of an on-coming bus. John doesn't panic when a man is shot dead right next to him, and he doesn't protest about breaking into Kitty Riley's flat. He doesn't even yell at Sherlock afterwards, when Sherlock says he needs to do things on his own.

Rich Brook's been so clever, Sherlock thinks, as he starts the long walk to Barts – less risky than taking a taxi, since Moriarty obviously has lots of cab driver contacts. Jim's set out to destroy trust in him, and he's done it very carefully. Mycroft and he aren't talking after the Irene Adler fiasco, so the run of government cases will now dry up. Scotland Yard aren't going to be asking for his help any time soon, and private clients won't come to a man who's alleged to be a fraud...

He'd underestimated Kitty Riley, hadn't he? She simply doesn't care that her story doesn't hold up if you examine it closely. How can Sherlock have faked the Peter Ricoletti case, for example? The man's been on Interpol's wanted list since Sherlock was six. But, like the ink stains on her skin, she focuses on first impressions, however superficial. It's going to take some hard work to redeem his reputation when people are so gullible.

Fortunately, he's not afraid of hard work. And if he can just get hold of the computer code, his problems will be over, he knows that. Mycroft will probably offer him a knighthood again, as a start. So it's time to start using Moriarty's own plan against him. Moriarty wants Sherlock dead and that suits him just fine. The obvious way to fight a man who supposedly doesn't exist is not to exist himself. To fake his own death. That will immediately get the police, and the assassins and the newspapers off his tail. And he knows just the person who can help him do that.

Just the _woman_. Something's changed in Molly, he saw that at the lab when they were running the analysis of the residues. She's not enchanted by him anymore; he's no longer an idol to her, even one with feet of clay. He's a human being and she cares about him. Because that's what Molly does: care about people, the living _and_ the dead. She'll help Sherlock to do this and she won't expect his love in return. She already knows, of course, that it's John he loves. It seems, sometimes, that he was the last person to realise that fact.

***

While Molly goes off to get the other body ready, the man who's going to hit the pavement, Sherlock sits in the lab at Barts and checks over the remaining problems. The biggest one, as ever, is John. It's going to hurt him when Sherlock dies, but there's no alternative. Faking two deaths is more than twice as hard as faking one. And if they did succeed it would be bound to look like a suicide pact between doomed lovers, which John would doubtless find awkward. More than that, John wouldn't be good at being dead. He has friends, responsibilities he wouldn't want to abandon. He'd find a life in hiding, watching his every word, impossible to maintain: he'd slip up, betray them both. John can't die with him and Sherlock can't let him know he's not dead. This has to be done right or not done at all.

Perhaps there's still a way to avoid it, though. If he can just work out where the computer code is in 221B, he might somehow be able to get John in there to retrieve it. After all, breaking into a building watched by the police and ringed by assassins sounds just like the sort of thing to cheer John up. _Where is John, anyhow?_ Oh, of course, Sherlock told him a few hours ago he needed to be on his own. One of these days, he's going to have to stop pushing John away. And it was a particularly stupid thing to do when he may just have wandered off and got himself arrested. He hastily switches his phone back on and checks his messages.

There is a series of texts from Lestrade – Greg. Stripped of the copious swearwords they have a simple, stark message. _I can't help you or John at the moment. Take care_. And then after that, thank God, a text from John. Sent just over an hour ago. _MD says 221B under guard but main London search not till morning to save on overtime! J_.

MD? It takes a certain amount of processing to work out that John must have contacted DI Dimmock – Mark? Michael? Murgatroyd? – who is obviously still willing to give Sherlock the benefit of the doubt. A risk, but enterprising of John. And then the phone beeps and there's a second message from John:

_I'm here to be used, Sherlock. If you need me. J_

How had he thought he could manage this without John? How is he possibly going to work out where the code is unless he has someone to bounce ideas off, his own conductor of light? He sends off a rapid text, and starts to calculate how long it might take John to get to Barts.

***

Forty-five minutes later John comes striding into the lab, saying "Got your message", the way he always does. The way he'd said it to Sherlock almost the first time they'd met, when Sherlock had texted him that the Pink Lady case might be dangerous.

Oh, of course, that's the reason for the echo in both his mind and John's. John has worked out about Rich Brook's informant, been to the Diogenes Club and from the way he's holding his hand, has somehow resisted the temptation to hit Mycroft. Eighteen months ago, Sherlock had told John that Mycroft was the most dangerous man he'd ever meet. Well, he'd been wrong about that, hadn't he? Sherlock bounces his ball one more time and starts explaining about the computer code.

Five minutes later, John taps his fingers and everything in Sherlock's mind flows together. That's where the code lurks, inside his own memory. And therefore also in Moriarty's.  He texts Moriarty then, quickly, before his own fingers can betray him. Before he finds some reason why he should stay with John instead of going to meet his enemy.

Because, of course, he's still going to have to die. He and Moriarty both are. It's the only certain way to remove Moriarty's copy of the computer code. And then, well, it's strange that he'll still have to die even though he's victorious, but he can't destroy Moriarty's empire efficiently if he's in custody for killing Rich Brook. If he just removes the head of the organisation, it will simply reconfigure itself within a few months. He has to be thorough this time, cut out the whole of the cancer. Which means that his own presumed death still remains the most effective short-term tactic.

The hard bit now is John. He looks over to where John's sitting at a bench, staring at some test-tubes, trying not to distract Sherlock while he's thinking. John can't be around for the meeting with Moriarty or he'll almost certainly end up as a hostage, a bargaining chip. Somehow Sherlock has to push him away yet again, get him somewhere safe.

It's not just that. At some point fairly soon, John is going to suggest they leave Barts, go undercover somewhere. He's going to start making plans for them if Sherlock hasn't announced any himself. He needs to distract John, stop him worrying about what to do next. He's going to have lie to John later to get him out of the way, so he also needs to give him something truthful now, something to reassure him of his good faith. And he wants...It'll be their last meeting for some time - months, maybe. He wants to show John something of what he feels, without betraying what's going to come.

And suddenly he knows what to do, how to make it work for both of them. He goes over to John and says:

"You know what the newspaper article didn't talk about? What Rich Brook didn't mention?"

"What?" says John, looking up in surprise.

"Anything about my sexuality. They're not interested in that anymore, they've got bigger issues to talk about. So I think we should have sex right now."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock's just about to fake his own death. So naturally, he needs to distract John...

If John is honest, he has occasionally wondered what it would be like to sleep with Sherlock. But then he's also wondered what it be would like to ride a high-powered motorbike with a defective silencer through the Diogenes Club or bungee-jump from the roof of Buckingham Palace wearing only a sheet; there is a small part of his mind that is unnaturally fascinated by really stupid things he might do. And it's been a long, exhausting day, so he's probably either misheard or is dreaming. Still ought to check, though.

"Did you really just suggest we should have sex?" he asks, and then realises that he's revealing some terrible things about his subconscious. But Sherlock just stands there and says: "Yes."

"Er, why?" John asks, because it probably is a dream and the answer's going to be: _because I have just been infected by a virus that is invariably fatal unless counteracted promptly with human sperm._

"Because I want to," Sherlock replies promptly. And oh, it must actually be Sherlock there, because no-one else could be quite so self-centred. John opens his mouth to say: _No, not interested, which bit of "I'm not gay" did you not understand?_ And then closes it again, because now he recognises the expression on Sherlock's face. The still, calm determination that John remembers from the night at the swimming pool, when Sherlock had silently asked him if it was OK to blow up the bomb-jacket.

They're on the ropes again, aren't they? Sherlock hasn't told him the whole story, as usual, but John's not entirely stupid. They're exactly where Moriarty wants them to be: disgraced fugitives. And tomorrow, they have two options. They have to break into 221B, sneak past the police and the assassins to find this damn code. Or they have to find Moriarty and somehow get the code off _him_ , break him in a way that Mycroft hasn't managed. Either way, the odds of success are small, and the odds of one or both of them dying or ending up in prison for life are worryingly large. Sherlock's not invulnerable any more, and John never has been. It's the eve of battle, and a man needs to find whatever comfort he can at that point. _Anything_ that gets you through the hours of waiting is worth trying.

Sherlock's eyes are still fixed on John's face, as if reading his every thought. Well, he's just going to have to be predictable, isn't he?

"OK," John says hastily, and adds, as Sherlock's face starts to crease into a smirk, "but not here. I'm not doing you on a mortuary slab or a lab bench. We need condoms, lube, and a lockable room with a bed."

"If an examination couch will do, doctor," Sherlock replies, "the Sexual Health Centre will have closed for the night."

They're both giggling as they head off there, and John reminds himself that this isn't the most stupid thing he's done with Sherlock. Has let Sherlock do to him. Sherlock starts fights with John, nicks his computer and gives him drug-laced coffee to drink, after all.  It's not even the most stupid thing they've done today, not if you include climbing over railings when handcuffed together. At least John'll get to lie down this time and he won't nearly get run over by a bus.

***

Sherlock starts searching round in the clinic for condoms as soon as they get there, which gives John a few moments to work out what the next step is. Best to stick to practicalities, he reckons. But it'd help if he had some idea of what exactly Sherlock wants.

"The easiest thing is probably for you to fuck me," John says, as he sits down on the couch. Sherlock turns and stares down in puzzlement at him.

"Receiving anal intercourse is not always enjoyable for the inexperienced," he says. Suggests he's tried it and doesn't like it, John thinks, but also that Sherlock is happiest with clinical language. John's not that keen on dirty talk in bed himself, to be honest. And he's also no Irene Adler; he doesn't really do suggestive or seductive that well.

"Who says I'm inexperienced?" he replies cheerily, because cheeriness he can do, and it'll help prevent him losing his nerve. "I was a medical student, remember. Complete irresponsibility combined with excessive curiosity about anatomy. We tried all sorts of things."

"You said you were straight," Sherlock says, and there's a slight edge to his voice. Maybe even a trace of hurt.

"Female medical students, even more dangerous than male ones. I had several girlfriends decide to practise informal prostate exams on me. In fact, I've had things in bodily cavities you really wouldn't want to hear about." John smiles sweetly at Sherlock and records, for posterity, the facial expression Sherlock makes when his head explodes. And then he remembers that he's not supposed to be winding Sherlock up. He's supposed to be helping them both forget that they may be going to die tomorrow.

"It's OK," John says, taking off his jacket, and his smile at Sherlock is reassuring, now. "We'll do what you want and stop if you want. But for now, come here and let's get you undressed."

"I–" Sherlock begins.

"We're in St Batholomew's hospital, the heart of medical London. Sherlock Holmes, take your trousers off."

***

John's seen Sherlock dressed in nothing but a sheet before, and not a very well-attached sheet at that, so he's got a fairly good idea of what's going to be on display. Though, of course, Sherlock not only is a big dick, but has one. His lean, muscled body is utterly unlike a woman's, but John stands up, pulls Sherlock in close and starts fondling his backside anyhow, because if this is going to work at all, it needs lots of skin contact, as well as a vivid imagination.

"Kiss me," he tells Sherlock, and Sherlock bends down and starts kissing –nuzzling – John's neck, which may not be quite what John had had in mind, but is pretty damn good anyhow. He ought to respond, but he'll get a crick in his neck if he tries. He's not used to snogging someone six inches taller than him. Going to have to concentrate on lower targets, he decides, and experimentally swipes his tongue across Sherlock's nipple. The response is a squirm and a gasp. A pleased gasp. Sherlock Holmes likes having his nipples licked, John realises, and who the hell cares about having your sexuality mucked up, when you can discover something so delightfully funny?

It rapidly turns into something that's almost as much unarmed combat as foreplay. John suspects that Sherlock has still not quite got over the fact that John's the stronger of the pair. John's also slightly the less stupid, so when Sherlock cups his hands under John's bum and starts trying to pick him up – he can't really be planning to have sex standing up, can he? – John kicks him firmly in the shin, and says: "We're doing it on the couch, or you'll damage something. Like me."

Sherlock put him down, slightly reluctantly. He seems a bit more prepared to take instructions than normally, which is a good sign. Make the most of it, John thinks, because at some point he's going to try and take charge and it'll be a bloody disaster. 

"Condom," John says, holding out his hand, and Sherlock produces one and hands it to him. He rolls the condom carefully onto Sherlock's dick, which up close looks reassuringly unlike any picture John's ever seen in the Colour Atlas of Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

"Lube."  Sherlock gives him that, and John starts smearing it over the condom extravagantly, because they have gallons of the stuff here. And with enough lube and carefulness, this shouldn't, in theory, hurt.

***

It does hurt, of course. Because John tenses up when it comes to the crucial moment and Sherlock is not at all good about being careful. John is stubbornly lying on his back, because he _has_ to see what is happening if he is going to make this work, and Sherlock is determinedly trying to bend John's legs in strange directions and push into his arse at the same time, and it feels completely wrong.

"Stop," John forces out, and Sherlock's face gets that hurt look that means he's just about to go off and throw a massive strop.

"Wait," John pants, "we can do this. Just let me get my breath back and take it _slowly_. We need to co-operate."

"You said that about the handcuffs as well," Sherlock replies. He still sounds hurt, and John suddenly can't resist it.

"Well I'm certainly not trying this in handcuffs," he retorts, and watches Sherlock's brain process that thought.

"If you got the angles right..." Sherlock replies slowly.

"Concentrate on getting them right this time," John says. "And be gentle. Or do I have to give you a bloody anatomy lesson?"

"No," Sherlock says, and then he suddenly smiles a slightly tentative smile. "It's...it's been a long time since I've done this. It is easier if you have your legs up."

"I know," says John. "But let's take our time. I haven't got anything better to do tonight."

"Nor have I," Sherlock replies softly, and then his hands go round John's ankle and he moves the leg with the care he'd use for one of his experiments or the gentle, precise touch he has on his violin, stroking John's skin as he does so. Then he bends John's other leg, splaying him out just so.

"Are you OK to try again?" Sherlock asks. John nods, and thinks _my turn now,_ and tries to calm his body, the way he used to before a shooting competition. Focus down on the right muscles, on the fact that they are under voluntary control.

"Try with a finger first," he says, lying back and closing his eyes, and feels the strange sensation ripple through his nerves as Sherlock does so, very slowly. Then Sherlock's finger starts to tease its way gently further inside. And... _oh_. Either Sherlock has beginner's luck, or he knows more about urogenital anatomy than he's let on, because he finds John's prostate surprisingly quickly. One of Sherlock's more implausible plans is really going to work, after all. _Should have known he can get in anywhere_ , John thinks, feeling slightly dazed.

Sherlock slides another finger in, a bit less gently, but it's OK, they both have some idea now of what they're doing, and the position on his back is strange, but not uncomfortable. Though John suspects his legs will start cramping in a bit. It's been a hell of a day all round, hasn't it?

Sherlock's dick in him now, and that statement should probably worry him more than it does, but John's starting to get hard himself, and who cares about exactly why? He reaches up to start pumping at his erection.

"Don't do that," Sherlock snaps. "It's not going to work."

"If you try to tell me how I should be getting myself off," John retorts, "I will–" he breaks off, because any threat is rather stupid at the moment.

"I want to up the pace, but you have to be properly braced for that," Sherlock replies through gritted teeth. "And I don't want you damaging your wrists trying to do it one-handed. I need you able to shoot straight tomorrow...and to thump people."

John gazes up at him, trying to get him into focus. His right wrist is still very sore from the handcuffs, but he hadn't thought Sherlock would notice. No, he hadn't thought Sherlock would _care_. But, of course, Sherlock's reasons are both practical and selfish.

"I want–" John begins.

"I'll handle the matter," Sherlock replies, "as it arises." And then he's grinning wickedly at John, and thrusting into him, and wrapping one slippery hand firmly around the base of John's dick, because he may not be as strong as John, but he has bloody brilliant co-ordination.

"So lie back and think of England," Sherlock adds, and John grins back, because Sherlock is on the case, and is going to be amazing, yet again. His own ridiculous, _fucking_ genius at work. And then he lies back and wraps his legs round Sherlock's waist and braces his arms, because, yes, this is going to be a bumpy ride. But he doesn't close his eyes this time.

***

There's nothing gentle or subtle about the pounding Sherlock is soon giving him, just an insistent rhythm. And pretty soon the co-ordination of Sherlock's hand on John's erection with his thrusts starts to falter, but it doesn't matter. The last time John saw Sherlock so out of control, so out of his head with emotion, was after he got a lungful of hallucinogenic fog, but Sherlock's not telling John to go away this time. Sherlock's panting and sweating and looking at John like he's the only thing that matters in the whole damn world, and John's whole body is on fire with sensation, and there is nothing he wants but this. Not going to last much longer, though, he can tell.

_Sherlock...Sherlock_ , he thinks, and he's not sure if he's saying it out loud, but it doesn't matter, because Sherlock can doubtless read his mind, what's left of it. John comes, swearing incoherently, but Sherlock just keeps on pumping into his arse and it's too much, he's so over-stimulated, and he desperately gulps out: "Sherlock!"

Somehow Sherlock must understand, because there's one last thrust, and Sherlock _screams_ , and then goes almost still, apart from a bit of shaking. Or maybe it's John who's shaking, as Sherlock pulls slowly out of John, and drops his legs back very, very carefully on the couch and then turns away rapidly to fiddle with the condom.

By the time Sherlock's disposed of the condom and returned with some wipes, John has almost remembered how to breathe properly, and is past the immediately dangerous point of blissful post-orgasm wooziness. The stage when if he opens his mouth he's liable to say something ridiculous like: _I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you_. Which is the kind of statement that has got him into a lot of trouble in the past. It's probably just as well, because Sherlock's face has taken on the jittery look he gets when he remembers that he's human after all, not a machine. _Your body may just be transport, but you enjoyed that ride, didn't you?_

That's not what John's supposed to say. He's supposed to make a joke at this point, because neither of them are any use at talking about feelings. And Sherlock definitely can't cope with remembering on the same night that he's got a dick _and_ a heart.

So John somehow manages to sit up for a few moments, while he cleans himself up, and announces: "You sound like the bloody hound of Baskerville when you come," and Sherlock promptly mutters in response, "So much for you not being gay," and smiles, and then John just collapses back down on the couch and hope that he never has to move again.     

***

It's five a.m. when Sherlock wakes him up and John feels terrible. Not about the fact that he's had his first ever sexual encounter with a man – with Sherlock – but because he's still exhausted, and he's been sleeping on a exam couch, and every muscle in his body has seized up. In particular, it's going to hurt like hell to run today, with his backside so sore. And there's bound to be a lot of running around at some point, probably with someone shooting at him. He's somehow feeling more positive about that fact, however. Sherlock doubtless has a clever plan.

In fact, Sherlock is currently looking down at him, assessing him, and John realises that the point for any discussion of last night has long since past. Especially since Sherlock announces that they need to go back to the lab, there is work to be done, so can John for goodness sake get a move on, and get dressed.

Sherlock is, of course, fully dressed and looking rested and clearly knows exactly what he's doing. John's brain, however, has still not got properly online and Sherlock says they haven't got time for coffee. So what happens when they get back to the lab and it turns out that the next part of the plan is Sherlock sitting around silently while playing with a rubber ball is not exactly surprising. John falls asleep _again_ right where he's sitting.

And then John's phone rings and the nightmare begins.

***

It is like a nightmare; it's also weirdly like some of those first blog posts that John wrote after he met Sherlock, which were nothing but _and then we did this, and then we did that_.  A string of events without meaning, without sense. Mrs Hudson is dying and Sherlock won't come to Baker Street, the bastard, but when John gets there she's not dying, and Sherlock isn't answering his phone, so he heads back to Barts, and Sherlock is up on the roof. Sherlock is up on the roof, telling John he's a fake and talking about leaving a note. Then Sherlock jumps.

The next thing John remembers – after the fall – is being hit by a cyclist, and he gets up and he goes to find Sherlock and the crowd won't let him through, and they're taking Sherlock away. And then John is inside Barts and a doctor, whom he thinks he ought to recognise but doesn't, is checking him for concussion. He asks her to do a blood test as well, in case he's been given drugged coffee, even though he doesn't remember actually drinking any coffee. But they're telling him Sherlock is dead, so it must be either drugs or more probably a nightmare, and he will wake up and it will be OK, and Sherlock will explain exactly what has happened.

Then he comes to properly and Sherlock is still dead.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock's dead, but John's still alive and kicking.

A week later John finally makes himself read the newspapers. He has to know the worst; it's no use pretending the articles don't exist. He finds the same quote over and over again. Captain John Watson (40) saying: "Sherlock wasn't the first of my friends I've watched die, but I hope to God he's the last". He can't clearly remember saying that, but maybe he did. When he was being collected by the police, perhaps, or when he was coming out of the police station and all the cameras had been going? He'd still been in shock, he wasn't entirely sure what he'd said at that point.

Whether he did really say or it not, somehow it's had an effect. He's not a "confirmed bachelor" to the papers any more, but a "tragic war hero" and the references to his friendship with Sherlock no longer have heavy-handed hints. He's inadvertently inned them both just when they've finally slept together, which is bloody ironic.

The thing is though, they're almost right. He and Sherlock were friends, and that's what counts, what remains. Not what they did together in bed – on an exam couch – even though that was surprisingly good – but what they did together in their lives. When John dreams about Sherlock – not the bad dreams, where Sherlock's body crunches onto the pavement, but the good ones – it's most often about them running through London, like they did on the day he moved into Baker Street. Or he dreams that they're back in Buckingham Palace, or in the sauna with the poisonous snake. He never wrote up the snake case in his blog, did he? Too late now, but he must tell Greg about it some time, now Sherlock can't be prosecuted. Or Jacob Sowersby, who is still Sherlock's number one fan.

John's ended up having long chats on the net with Jacob at 3 a.m., when he needs someone, anyone to tell about Sherlock. Jacob's very strange, of course, but he's easy to talk to, oddly understanding about why John is haunted by his mad bastard genius of a flatmate. Jacob _knows_ Sherlock isn't a fake, and anyone who comes out and says that is almost automatically on John's list of friends now.

He's not telling Jacob about that last night at Barts, of course. He's not sure he'll ever tell anyone about that. He's still not sure why it happened, why he agreed to it. Why Sherlock wanted it. None of it makes sense: that's the worst thing of all.

***

He certainly can't tell Ella about what happened. She'll get hung up about sexual identities and miss the key thing. That he loved Sherlock and now he's gone.  He goes to see Ella because it's the sensible thing to do. And then he can't talk to her, because this isn't something he can be sensible about. He talks to Sherlock instead.

Well, to his gravestone. They've only just got it up, and it says nothing but Sherlock's name. But what else would it say? "Sherlock Holmes, beloved son and brother"? "Sherlock Holmes, insufferable genius, but definitely not a fake"? "Sherlock Holmes, never happier than among the dead"?

John can't say that out loud, but he can say at least something to Sherlock. That he was the best man he's ever known. That he saved him from being alone – because that's one of the things that Sherlock has left him, a bizarre ad hoc family of his supporters. But it's not enough, and he ends up making a stupid, emotional plea for the impossible, for Sherlock not to be dead.

He has an odd feeling as he leaves, that he's being watched. Big Brother, most likely: Mycroft's probably has cameras in the graveyard to ensure there's no vandalism. Or maybe it's Moriarty.

No, it can't be. Three days after Sherlock...after it happened, John had texted Mycroft. _There's one man I hate more than you. Tell me where he is and I'll deal with him for you. JHW_. And Mycroft had texted back: _Your offer is appreciated, but unnecessary. The matter has already been attended to. M._ He should have guessed Mycroft would sort out Moriarty, John thinks, heading back to Mrs Hudson.  Shame he couldn't have done it a whole lot earlier.

"Did you...did you feel he was there?" he asks, as the taxi draws up at Baker Street. Mrs Hudson's about to get out and John has to remind himself to stay in the cab, that he doesn't live there anymore.

"Oh yes," she replies promptly."Watching us.  I mean I know Sherlock would say I was being a silly old woman, because he's dead and buried, and you can't really imagine Sherlock as an angel, can you, John?  But yes, I did feel that." And then she gives him that sweet, shrewd smile of hers, as she leans across and pats John's hand. "He's in your head and your heart and he'll always be there. So you should tell him the things you couldn't tell him to your face. Just keep on telling him, because the poor boy can't demand we shut up any more, can he?"

_He will outlive God trying to have the last word._ He'd said that once, hadn't he? Wrong again, John thinks. He smiles unconvincingly at Mrs Hudson, and promises he'll look after himself, and sits back in the taxi as it heads off to his new bedsit in Clapham.

And then, because Mrs Hudson is right, and what else are taxis for but to talk with Sherlock, he stares out of the window and addresses the sardonic memory lurking inside his own head.

"I don't regret it, you know," he says, so quietly that it's lost in the traffic's noise. "Sleeping with you, I mean. Maybe I should do; maybe it makes it harder. But I'd have regretted it more if I'd said no. It was always worth doing things you wanted me to, whatever the risks." He shakes his head. It's true enough, but it's still not the heart of the matter. He has to try and say it, though as usual, he can only approach it via a joke.

"But it's not exactly a ringing endorsement of my sex appeal when you top yourself a few hours after sleeping with me," he adds. "Any explanation for that one, Sherlock?"

This is the point where Sherlock would doubtless call him an idiot. Or do the "we both know what's going on" face yet again. It isn't as if Sherlock gave John straight answers even when he was alive, after all.

"Why did you do it?" he demands, which is the real question, the only question, has always been. He's not going to get an answer, of course. They're can't be one. There's always every reason, or no reason, for suicide. But suddenly, it's as if John can see Sherlock out of the corner of his eye, sitting there in the cab beside him. He mustn't look round or he'll vanish, but Sherlock is here and his voice echoes through John's head: _Wrong question_.

And then, of course, he sees that it is. _Why_ is always too general a question for any crime, any death. The question should always be: _why then, why there?_ Not why Sherlock killed himself in the abstract, but why he threw himself off the top of Barts on that particular day?

For a start, why had they gone to Barts at all? Sherlock wasn't running any experiments, and it abruptly occurs to John that it was a pretty stupid place for a couple of fugitives to hide. Everyone knew Barts was Sherlock's home from home. He spent most of his free time there, when he wasn't at Baker Street or New Scotland Yard, or haring round London.

_Oh_. Moriarty's assassins had made 221B off limits, and Sherlock wasn't going to be getting any voluntary invitations to New Scotland Yard any time soon, after Moriarty's success in framing him. Sherlock was waiting at Barts because that was the obvious place where Moriarty would come.

No. It was where Sherlock invited Moriarty. Because that explains the phone call. John's been thinking it was Moriarty who decoyed him away, but that's because he's an idiot. If Moriarty had lured John back to Baker Street, Mrs Hudson really would have been shot. Or John would have been arrested. Or at the very least, there'd have been a silly note on the door saying "FOOLED YOU". It wasn't Moriarty's style, that distraction, was it? It has Sherlock's fingerprints all over it, because he is a fucking bloody idiot who always thinks he can get on fine just on his own.

_Was_ an idiot. So assume that Moriarty came to Barts. What then? He defeated Sherlock and Sherlock was so distressed he killed himself? As soon as John says it in his mind, he knows that's wrong. Sherlock didn't give up like that, never would do. So why did he jump? Why did he claim he was a fake and then jump? Because Moriarty was threatening him. Obvious next link in the chain. Moriarty threatened to kill Sherlock, unless he faked his own suicide.

No that's not right, he thinks, but he can't get the next piece of the puzzle.  The taxi's drawing up outside his door, but after he's paid the fare John doesn't go inside. Instead, he wanders off, heading for Clapham Common and ends up standing by Eagle Pond staring into the murky depths.

Sherlock wouldn't kill himself just because Moriarty wanted him to. Sherlock might kill himself accidentally when he was trying to prove he was clever, but then he wouldn't have claimed he was a fake. _Think_. What else did Sherlock say when he was up on the roof? Anything odd, anything that didn't fit? He'd talked about a note, he'd claimed he'd researched John. No, not that.

Ah, one odd thing. Sherlock had told him to stand in a particular place. When John had tried to go into Barts, he'd stopped him, hadn't he? Insisted several times, that John had to stay where he was. _Oh fuck_ , he thinks, and he can feel his knees buckle as he realises it, has to fight to stay upright. Not even Moriarty would have thought of that, surely?

Why not? Moriarty had broken into the Tower of London and the Bank of England. He'd blown up a block of flats in Glasgow.  So why shouldn't he decide to blow up Barts, or at least some of it? Because dying was what people did, as far as Moriarty was concerned. Had he been planning to put the blame on Sherlock somehow? Or had he just not cared what happened after that?

He'd given Sherlock the choice: give up your life and your reputation or people will die. God knows how many people would have died. Had Sherlock known that all along, suspected that was how it was going to end? That "Jim from IT" would want to come back to where Sherlock and he had first met, shatter that memory, that building, into a thousand pieces?

Sherlock had gone off to Barts on his own after they'd met "Rich Brook". He'd summoned John there and then sent him away again. Sherlock had probably thought at first that he could outsmart Moriarty still, the way he'd finally defeated Irene Adler. But somewhere along the line he'd realised there was no way out, and he'd tried to protect John, at least.

There are complex ripples on the lake, ever-changing patterns, and John finds himself staring at them. He's doubtless missed some key elements, he always does. He's not a detective genius. He's still got no idea how the computer code fits in. Did Sherlock somehow find it? If so, he'll presumably have passed it on to Mycroft and there will be a whole additional set of plots involved there.

But he feels, he _knows_ that he's got to the heart of what happened, and it brings a tiny bit of warmth to him. It won't bring Sherlock back, of course, nothing will. But it's like in Afghanistan: knowing that your friends had died for something they believed in helps, gives a purpose to the sacrifice. To all of what happened.

"You were a hero after all," he says, and then remembers it's not something he's supposed to say out loud. Sherlock always tried to hide the truth about himself. He claimed to despise emotions and then choked up in his last phone call. Sherlock pretended he was a sociopath, but he sacrificed his life – his reputation – to save others.

And, of course, most of all, Sherlock had sneered at love and then...that was what the encounter in the clinic had been about, wasn't it? A way of demonstrating with bodies what could not be said by words. Because Sherlock Holmes can fake many things, John thinks, as he heads back to his rooms, smiling for the first time in weeks, but not even he could have faked that orgasm.


End file.
